Demonstrating Student Mastery with Digital Badges and Portfolios

An ASCD Study Guide for Demonstrating Student Mastery with Digital Badges and Portfolios

This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Demonstrating Student Mastery with Digital Badges and Portfolios, an ASCD book written by David Niguidula and published in January 2019.

You can use the study guide before or after you have read the book, or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book, but, rather, to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection.

These questions can be addressed on your own, or can form the basis for conversations with colleagues within your own school or district.

Each chapter has essential questions that are the focus for the whole chapter. You can have discussions focused on these essential questions; you can also use the other questions listed below to guide the conversation.

Introduction

What does it mean to you to "personalize" schooling for students?

What does it mean to you to ask all students to achieve mastery?

What initiatives are taking place in your school now to address personalization or mastery-based learning? Do these initiatives complement each other, or do they operate separately?

What experience does your school have with portfolios (either digital or paper)?

What experience does your school have with digital badges?

Chapter 1. Setting the Vision

Essential questions for the chapter: What does mastery look like? What can portfolios tell us about students as learners and as individuals?

Imagine it's the end of the school year at your school. If you asked students to present their best work, what would they show?

The chapter mentions several kinds of portfolios: Best Work, Subject Area, Project-Based. Which of these portfolios would fit best with your school?

What conversations are happening currently in your school around student work (e.g., parent-teacher conferences; student reflections; individual learning plans)? Are these conversations occurring throughout the school or just with certain teachers and students?

Chapter 2. Defining Badges

Essential question for the chapter: What do we want our students to know and be able to do?

The chapter contains several examples of badge lists; additional lists appear in the appendix. As you look at these samples, what do you notice in common? What separates one school's list from another?

Generate a list of academic skills that are taught in your school. (This can be on a high level; e.g., your school may have in writing skills, you can list the categories of writing, such as narrative, procedural, etc., rather than going into deeper detail.) Which of these would you consider required of all students before they leave your school? Which would be elective—meaning they are important, but not required?

Repeat Question 3 for the skills beyond the academic subject areas (such as the sections in this chapter on the Modes of Thought, Work Habits, Success Skills, College and Career Readiness, Personal Interest). Again, which of these would you consider required of all students before they leave your school?

Chapter 3. Creating Portfolio-Worthy Tasks

Essential questions for the chapter: How do students earn the badges? What goes into the portfolio? How do we create portfolio-worthy tasks?

Think about your own school days as a student. What specific assignments do you still recall? What makes those assignments memorable?

Consider a single class or subject area. What are the three most important tasks that students complete in this class? Do these tasks represent demonstrations of different skills? Do they represent growth over time?

Pages 52–53 list five qualities of portfolio-worthy tasks. What tasks in your classroom demonstrate those qualities?

Quests and projects provide opportunities for independent work and extended learning. What projects are already happening in your school? Do they meet the criteria listed on pages 70–71?

How can students demonstrate voice and choice in their tasks?

Look back at the badge lists you created as part of the Chapter 2 study guide questions. What requirements would you now associate with the badges? In other words, what tasks should students complete to earn the badges?

Chapter 4. Effective Feedback with Schoolwide Rubrics

Essential question for the chapter: How do we decide what's "good" or, at least, "good enough"?

How often do you use rubrics now? When are rubrics being used in your classroom or school?

The chapter provides the example of a lab report rubric. What other common tasks in your school could benefit from a schoolwide rubric?

Look up one of your existing rubrics. Does it meet the criteria for "quality rubric design" described on page 90?

If you wanted to conduct a calibration exercise, what task would you want to calibrate? Who should be a part of the calibration activity?

Chapter 5. Tours: Student Presentations of Portfolios

Essential question for the chapter: How do students present their best work?

What opportunities do students have at your school to reflect on their work? Do they reflect on individual tasks, or on their body of work?

Consider the badge lists from Chapter 2. If you were a student presenting a tour to earn a badge, what pieces of work would you include?

Example tours in this chapter (and in the appendix) walk through some samples of end-of-year reviews. Select one of the samples, such as the 9th, 10th or 11th grade tour. How would a student at your school respond? What would you expect to see in a student's tour?

What could students from your school include in a college/career readiness tour?

Chapter 6. Creating a Badge- and Portfolio-Friendly School Culture

Essential questions for the chapter: How do we make sure the portfolios are valued? How do we build on what we already have? What else has to change?

The chapter lists several purposes for establishing digital badges and portfolios. Which purposes resonate most with you?

Consider other stakeholders at your school (students, teachers, parents, administrators, community members). What are their primary concerns? How could a portfolio initiative help address those concerns?

What initiatives have worked well at your school? Why do you think that initiative was successful?

How can digital badges and portfolios support initiatives that are already occurring at your school?